


nothing to do but to marry all the rest of the world

by elftrash



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-23 21:09:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20346772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elftrash/pseuds/elftrash
Summary: “I can understand metallurgy,” Celeborn told him. “I merely do not care for it.”





	nothing to do but to marry all the rest of the world

**Author's Note:**

> FOR #9

If he had to dine with Celebrimbor Feanorian, Celeborn preferred to do it in a setting that gave him other partners to converse with. There was little relief in dining four to the table, when that four was himself and his wife, the last of the Feanorians, and a Dwarf-lord of Hadhodrond.

They talked shop all the way through the first course, about some new kind of alloy of true-silver that could be made to glow in moon-light. Celeborn was interested in subtle things, in things that looked their best by night. That much of Doriath would never leave him, but he understood them in aesthetic terms, and his half-Noldor wife and Celebrimbor Feanorian and the Dwarf spoke in terms of ore and amalgams, intermetallic compounds and interstitial alloys, crystal structures and corrosion resistance. It was all noise to him, noise like the untuneful clashing and clanging of the forge, even when his wife’s silver laughter rang out.

“Oh, we’re being rude,” Celebrimbor said, looking up and blinking. His gold-scaled sleeve was half in the finger-bowl at his elbow. He had dressed up for dinner for once, at least. He usually did little credit to his role as a lord of Eregion, in forge-clothes with singed patches and a scarred and battered leather apron, his long dark hair braided back severely from his long pale face. 

Tonight, he was wearing jewellery. His fingers glittered with gold and garnet, and there were great gold earrings in his ears. It made Celeborn uncomfortable to see him attired so clearly as a Noldor prince in the red and gold of Feanor’s house. He said, with irritating sincerity, “I’m sorry, Celeborn. We should talk about something you can understand.”

“I can understand metallurgy,” Celeborn told him. “I merely do not care for it.”

The Dwarf-lord laughed.

Galadriel said, “I have been meaning to ask, Lord Narvi. The new road from the Doors of Durin to Ost-in-Edhil will be an excellent thing, if it means we will have more trade and contact with Khazad-dum. But I can’t understand the need for it! Surely the Sirannon itself suffices for bearing goods from your door to ours?”

“I see your point, lady,” the Dwarf said respectfully, and he began speaking of paving and road-beds. It was hardly better than the metal-talk.

Celebrimbor was watching the Dwarf closely. That was unusual. Always before in such small gatherings, his gaze had either been far-away, still somewhere in his workshop or laboratory, or much too fixed upon Galadriel. 

It was a terribly banal meal, and Celeborn was eager to take his leave early. He suggested to his wife that it was time to retire, and Galadriel looked hard at him. Then she looked at Celebrimbor and the Dwarf, their heads bent together in talk. “Perhaps it is,” she said. “Our designs mesh in this, at least so far.”

She put out her hand and Celeborn took it, and they rose together from the table.

“No,” said Galadriel, when the Dwarf and Celebrimbor began to rise, too. “It is courteous of you, but you need not end your conversation because we must retire! I will have the steward bring you more wine.”

-

“I don’t understand why you didn’t just pack them home,” Celeborn grumbled, back in their chambers, and Galadriel gave him her sphinx smile.

“Perhaps not,” she said, and turned her back to him, pulling her long silver-gold hair over her shoulder and baring the nape of her neck. “Will you unlace me?”

-

There was no trace of any detritus left by the Dwarf and the Feanorian in the morning, and a polite bread-and-butter note had been left by Celebrimbor with the steward. 

Celeborn was appeased, but a frown creased his lady’s white brow.

-

“I have commissioned a special gift for you from our dear kinsman for your name-day,” Galadriel told him a week later, “with some aid from his learned Khazad friend. I give you fair warning now, my love, so that you will have time to compose a gracious speech of acceptance.”

“How very thoughtful,” said Celeborn. 

His lady’s design was dark to him, but in the event, the gift itself was more pleasing than he had anticipated: a open-work silver carcenet, in a style that was not quite Sindar – as if the Feanorian would dare! – but wasn’t Noldor, either, because it quite lacked their gaudiness. There were no enormous ruby cabouchons or yellow diamonds. Instead, there were pearls and opals, and it was lighter than he expected when he lifted it in his white hands and turned it to the light.

“It is mithril,” Celebrimbor said, and gave the Dwarf a sideways look. “Lord Narvi has been working with me on the ithildin alloy, and there is a message written in it that your lady wife had inscribed that will only appear in the moonlight.”

“It is very fine,” Celeborn said, and nodded at both Celebrimbor and the Dwarf.

“You have done very well,” his wife told them. “And with so little time! You must have been working together on it every day – and every night, too?”

“It was nothing, my lady,” said the Dwarf, and placed his hand over his heart.

“Truly,” said Celebrimbor, and although their words were courteous, Celeborn knew his wife well enough to know that she was less than satisfied.

“There is a problem with the gift?” he asked later.

“No, it is precisely as I wished,” she said. “I think, my dear, that I will ask Narvi to give us a tour of the new Khazad workings in the western tunnels.”

“I beg you will make my excuses,” Celeborn said. “I have no desire to go underground.”

“This I know,” said Galadriel his wife. “Perhaps Celebrimbor will squire me in your stead?”

“With my very good wishes!” He peered at her. “If you mean to make me jealous, and so tempt me underground, I am afraid you have missed your mark! I am too sure of your affections.”

“No,” said his lady. “Jealousy is a very crude lever. I would not use it unless truly pressed.”

-

“Lord Celebrimbor _and_ Lord Narvi were trapped together in the western workings?” Celeborn asked in some disbelief. “Of all who might be caught in an unexpected rockfall – they would be the very last!”

“I shall have to tell Celebrimbor how highly you esteem his rock-sense,” Galadriel told him, shaking gravel-dust from her hair. She had braided it around her head for the mining tour, and it made Celeborn’s throat catch to see her as he had first seen her in Thingol’s court, her queenly head wreathed in gold. Her hair had been studded with emerald-headed pins then, however, not gravel, and she had not had such a becoming smear of coal-dust on her white cheek.

“Were they hurt?” he asked, a little belatedly.

“No; it was a very lucky thing,” Galadriel said. “They were both entirely unaffected, and the rockfall was between them and I. I was free to find help, and the only damage done was the waste of their time.”

“Thank Araw for that,” Celeborn said, and brought her hand to his mouth to kiss her fingertips. “- and for their safety, too. I confess that I find myself moved by Celebrimbor’s ordeal! Ten hours, alone in the dark, with a Dwarf!”

“It was all very unfortunate,” his wife agreed, and she was frowning again. 

-

They were dining alone with the Feanorian and the Dwarf again.

Celeborn made several subtle intimations that he would like to leave early this evening, too, but this time Galadriel ruthlessly ignored them. 

“My lord Narvi,” she said, and Celebrimbor’s dark head jerked up from where it had been bent down to the Dwarvish one, heavy golden earrings swinging. “I was so very impressed by the work you put into the gift for my lord husband, and I find myself desirous to give gift for gift.”

“It was a gift indeed,” said the Dwarf, as silver-tongued as he was silver-worker. “So no recompense is needed, or indeed can be accepted.”

“Which is why I speak of gifts, and not payment,” smiled his wife. “As you have honoured my lord, may I honour you in turn? Is there a wife waiting for you back in the Dwarrow-delf, or a husband? I know your people too well to imagine that there is not great competition for the hand of such a skilled craftsman as you.”

The Dwarf was going a strange brick-red under his beard. Celebrimbor had jerked his head, and the golden beads in his hair clicked together. “My parents have been in negotiations,” he said. “But I have not said yes or no to them yet.”

“Perhaps it is a wedding-gift I should give you,” said Galadriel. “You will return to Durin’s Court with much honour when the road is done, and I would have you return laden with gods worthy of your status.”

“The lady is very kind,” said the Dwarf.

“But the road will not be done for – oh, a twenty-year at least,” said Celebrimbor. It was not often that Celeborn saw him so little abstracted, and so wholly present. “We cannot do without you until then!”

“Nor will you,” said the Dwarf, looking at him with strange intensity. 

“It is a long time to put off your own life, my friend.”

“Yet it _is_ my life - and I would spend it where I choose.”

“Your King sent you hence.”

“And would have me home, if I wished, now the project is underway. But I do _not_ wish,” said the Dwarf.

“Yours would be a lonely exile,” said Celebrimbor, “and that I could not allow.”

“I do not find it so,” said the Dwarf. “Not of late – not with such company as I have found, and wish to keep, as long as I might.”

Galadriel was signalling that it was time to withdraw, but it was Celeborn’s turn to ignore her.

“You might keep it all of your days,” said Celebrimbor, and he had gone very pale, but his grey eyes were shining like stars. 

“I would accept the company of a friend,” said the Dwarf, “but I cannot say that I might not long for a husband.”

That was fair enough, Celeborn thought. “Well,” he said, generously, for the carcanet had been very fine, “I know we agreed to a company of no more than thirty of your people to dwell within Ost-in-Edhil at any time, but if you wish to wed, I daresay you might apply to have your spouse join you here.”

“My love,” said Galadriel. “It is truly time we retired.”

“I might linger a while yet,” said Celeborn, because his wine-glass was yet full, and was startled by the sudden flash of her eyes. “Or not?”

It was a fine thing, to be wed nearly a thousand years, and still so eager for each other. The Dwarf and the Elf-lord seemed to barely notice their departure.


End file.
